The Royal Challengers Bangalore host the Chennai Super Kings at their home ground in Bengaluru on Wednesday (April 25) evening.
Both the teams have had had contrasting fortunes so far in the ongoing season- while CSK have won 4 out of 5 matches and are at the top half of the points table, RCB, on the other half, have 2 wins out of 5 but have won their most recent match in Bengaluru against the Delhi Daredevils.
Chennai Super Kings have found a new savior each time the team has looked down and out which makes them so strong as a unit. Whenever CSK find themselves in a spot of bother, one or two men raise their hands and shout out no need to worry and keep CSK in the hunt. The team has advocated their skipper MS Dhoni’s style of approaching the game which is to take the game deeper and deeper and eventually emerged as the victor.
Royal Challengers Bangalore who have a very good top order have not got off to the best of starts from their opening pair. An efficient utilization of the power play can make things a lot easier for stroke makers like Virat Kohi and AB de Villiers in the middle and death overs. Also RCB should not be over reliant on ABD and Virat and in case of their rare but inevitable failure, someone else must take up the challenge and help RCB reach their goal. RCB can try and strengthen their middle order by having a Moeen Ali or Colin de Grandhomme in the playing XI.
One can expect a high scoring game once again at the M Chinnaswami Stadium after a couple of low scoring wonders the past two days. The batsmen would be on spotlight. Two of the highest run getters in IPL history will feature in the match tonight and Suresh Raina (highest IPL run getter) and Virat Kohli (trailing Rainia by 9 runs) will be key to their respective franchise’s strategy.
Ambati Rayudu and Shane Watson have been pretty good at the top of the order and would try and extend their good form coming into this match. AB will come in to this match on the back of a wonderful innings against the Delhi Daredevils and if he is in that particular zone, one would try and avoid being a part of the CSK bowling camp. But there lies the challenge.
Umesh Yadav (RCB) has bowled some excellent opening spells in the tournament but would try and improve his later spells where he has conceded a lot of runs and batsmen have found him pretty easy to score off. Deepak Chahar has been doing a phenomenal job for Chennai Super Kings and the youngster will be keen to take his good form and rhythm into the match.
At the Chinnaswami, being a spinner is always a tough challenge but Yuzvendra Chahal seems to cherish it the most. He will be a key man in tonight’s game. Expecting CSK spinners Ravindra Jadeja, Imran Tahir and Harbhajan Singh to also exert some amount of pressure.
The Bengaluru crowd will be at their loudest today as it is the neighboring Chennai that has come to its den. Another fabulous cricketing evening is set to commence as Match No. 24 of IPL 2018 unfolds. Broadcast Starts at 20:00 Hours (IST).
